The Biology Department is excited to welcome Dr. Jason Strickland and Dr. Jonathan Perez to the faculty of the Biology Department!

---

Posted on August 15, 2020 by Jeremiah Henning

Jeremiah Henning

---

---

 

The Biology department is super excited to officially add Dr. Jonathan Perez (left) and Dr. Jason Strickland to the faculty!

Dr. Perez is jumping right in and teaching animal physiology this semester. Dr. Perez is an integrative physiologist interested in understanding how animals time their lives. In short how do they know/decide when to do things like migrate or breed. Dr. Perez's group is interested in understanding how migrating animals integrate environmental cues and internal information to make these decisions, from cue detection to response. Understanding how animals time their lives is a critical first step to understanding if and how they will be able to respond to a changing world.

Dr. Strickland is teaching genetics and some introductory biology labs. Dr. Strickland's lab group is interested in understanding how changes in the genome modify the phenotype and ultimately effect fitness. We use a combination of field work, lab work, and computation to identify changes in gene sequence and regulation to understand how selection shapes trait evolution. We use venom as our model system because of the near 1-to-1 match from gene to toxin, high intra- and inter-specific variation, and ecological importance in feeding and defense. 

Faculty pages coming soon!

---

---